MLB Television Viewership Up Five Percent

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Without rehashing the baseball-is-dying trope, it should be noted that the television ratings for this year’s All-Star Game took a pretty steep dive. Over the past half-decade, the ratings had held pretty steady, which is actually a positive trend relative to the general decline in television viewership as a whole — as well as the lack of interest in the other major sports’ All-Star contests. While the All-Star game still managed to draw nearly 9 million viewers, that figure also represent a 20% drop from last year’s contest — and seems to indicate that the exhibition lacks some of the draw that the event possessed when major-league broadcasts were few and far between.

In the grand scheme of baseball viewership, however, the All-Star game appears to represent an anomaly rather than a building trend. Because even as fewer people tuned into the midsummer class than almost ever before, local television ratings, which are up again over last season, indicate that more and more viewers are watching baseball on a regular basis.

Two years ago, the Royals came out of nowhere to make the World Series. Last year, that momentum carried over to viewers as Kansas City led MLB teams in local ratings. After winning the World Series last year, Kansas City is still watching a ton of baseball. Ratings-wise the two teams from Missouri boast the top two spots in baseball, per Forbes.

Overall, there’s been an increase of 121,000 viewers across the board, an increase of 5% over last season. The All-Star game might have lost a couple million, but MLB stands to have an increase locally about 10 times that amount. In an era where fewer and fewer people are even watching television and ratings for the Olympics are down 25%, seeing an increase in viewers is a plus for Major League Baseball. While the shift over viewership from national games to local ones can make it look like popularity is shrinking, it’s representative of the industry and our population as a whole.

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